The Tranquil Meditator: Representing Buddhism and Buddhists in US Popular Media

Abstract From Buddha statues in home decor to meditating figures in advertising, film, and television, images of Buddhism proliferate in US popular media. This paper reflects on the relative lack of sustained critical examinations of these representations while offering an approach to future studies based, in part, on Jane Iwamura's Virtual Orientalism . An iconographic approach to Buddhism in media can help the researcher identify recurring tropes and their implicit meanings across a wide range of media and point toward emerging trends in the development of Buddhism in Western cultural contexts. Video abstract (click to view)